


but away was himself

by goshemily



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Twelve Dancing Princesses Fusion, Ballad 39: Tam Lin, Canon Era, Fairy Tales, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-16
Updated: 2015-10-16
Packaged: 2018-04-26 14:44:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5008705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goshemily/pseuds/goshemily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“We do not control your dreams, Grantaire. I think the wine is speaking for you.”</p>
<p>Grantaire takes a draught. “Then tell me where you go when I sleep, because I miss the company.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	but away was himself

_Not so long ago, and not so far away - only enough of each for deniability, only enough of each so that no one now has to remember - there lived a king who refused to say why he made his daughters dance…_

“Prouvaire,” and Enjolras is far from stern, but he is weary, and grey colors his voice, “we were not made to dance by a king.”

“Actually, we _were_ made to dance by a king, if you want to be metaphorical. His excess drove us to ours.” Courfeyrac is no less tired, sat on the floor and massaging his pained feet - throwing raised-eyebrow sidelong looks at Combeferre the while, making significant gestures at his arches - but he will not relinquish mischief until he dies.

“We were made to dance by our own selves,” Enjolras says. 

“A face as grave as that, you’ll hasten us to our ends.”

Enjolras smiles at Courfeyrac, but it is an empty thing; around the Musain, everyone is prone, except Prouvaire upright and reading.

“We tried to traverse the infinite,” Prouvaire says.

“You think that wrong?”

“Never; but an oppressive magic is hardly unexpected. We believe in the future, so we cannot forget the past.” He shakes his papers for emphasis, and returns to them.

Outside, dawn; inside, the strange doorway to the cellar and the sewers beyond, a wanting mouth.

*

“My dreams are empty of you all,” Grantaire says the next evening, “and I do not understand it, except you desert me - my just deserts, of course, though I would prefer the ill-declaimed cake of the ill-fated queen - for refusing to follow where you tread. I do a pretty dance, but I must admit your piper seems less than interested in me. His right of course, a churlish Morpheus; there are others more enticing.”

“Maybe _too_ enticing,” Joly says meaningfully.

Grantaire tries not to see Enjolras golden in the firelight, and sighs. “Always! But I was accustomed to dream of the club, and though they were nightmares,” a delicate shudder, half for effect and half because he cannot repress it, “I now find myself lonely in the night.”

“Be glad.”

“Am I too abased for your notice, or not enough?” 

Joly lays a hand on his arm. “We do not control your dreams, Grantaire. I think the wine is speaking for you.”

Grantaire takes a draught. “Then tell me where you go when I sleep, because I miss the company.”

Joly is silent.

*

The sewers are linked to the catacombs by a hall lined with living fleurs de lis. The silver of the pointed petals is made rusty by blood.

*

“Grantaire, will you do me a service?”

“Anything. I’ll black your boots.” They’re worn, covered in muck. Grantaire is used to watching Enjolras’s feet, every quick impassioned step he used to take – but he moves carefully now.

*

Enjolras twirls, a puppet, and looks at the shadow-crowned thing on the throne. It appears different to them all: a putrid corpse to Joly, a malnourished child to Feuilly. For Enjolras, it wears the shape of tyranny, that luxuriating self-importance that breeds hatred and cries death to empathy.

Searching the tunnels for places to hide armament led them to this hell. 

_Enjolras_ led them to it.

He ducks under Combeferre’s arm, followed by a half-rotted soldier. A skeleton passes its hands through his hair.

They dance and they dance, whirling toward an early death like comets too easily burnt out. Enjolras feels his breaths come short even in the daylight world now, his body aching to dance even when the spell allows them out of the cavern. In what little sleep he gets, he can hear the music playing.

He cannot look at his friends.

*

Grantaire waits, sunk in a stupor and mostly asleep, for the room to empty so he can rest. But when the meeting ends and he hears a door open, it is not the expected tenor of the door to the hall and the café beyond; he hears a low moaning thing, made of stone.

The sound of eight pairs of feet, then nothing. He raises his head, and he follows.

The unsteady flames of eight candles lead him down damp stairs and through dank corridors, hardly the dream he’d expected. Sleeping, he usually conjures less prosaic obstacles than this maze, unless a minotaur will greet them at the end. They tread heavy and the sound echoes, a nice touch for verisimilitude. The silver and gold of the misshapen trees around them would be enough to pay a king’s ransom.

Grantaire stays in the deeper shadows, even though he doubts he would be noticed in the light.  
They pass through what seem to be miles of walls of bones. Once, someone ahead stumbles. Grantaire tries to avoid the rough place, but it almost catches him.

At last they come into a wide cave, filled with a kind of party. Grantaire would laugh, or try to wake up, but he’s seen worse in other dreams than these unfamiliar shades. None of the noticeably dead or decaying wear the faces of his friends. Only the man on the throne is a double; he is Grantaire himself, eyes bloodshot and spine indolent. He raises his bottle to Grantaire in greeting. “Welcome,” he says, in Grantaire’s most mocking tone.

Grantaire nods, and watches the dance. His living friends leap and spin, grimacing and clearly tired. Enjolras whirls almost mad in the center of it all.

Grantaire wends his way past poorly-articulated limbs and tries to reach for Enjolras, to slow him from his fury. It is almost easy, here, to stretch out a hand, where there are no consequences and no one will ever know.

The dawning horror on Enjolras’s face is familiar from other dreams.

“Rest a little,” Grantaire says. 

“Why did you follow?” Enjolras asks.

“What else could I do?”

Enjolras shakes his head, even as they circle one another. “There was no reason for you to come.”

“I don’t control it, you know.”

“I want to stop dancing.” Exhaustion is written on his face and in the way his fingers tremble when he takes Grantaire’s hand. “I believe in what we do, but this price is the wrong one.” His warmth is shockingly real. “I wish you hadn’t come.”

“A man goes with his friends, if he can.” The shades waver closer. “I’d try to wake up,” and Grantaire wants to laugh, but it catches in his throat, “but this is too precious.” He tries to hold Enjolras’s hand lightly.

“You’re not dreaming,” Enjolras says.

Grantaire blinks slowly.

His double does laugh, then, ugly and rasping. “If you think you can hold him, you can have him.”

“Don’t let go.” Enjolras’s voice is bare and alone, though his back to the thing on the throne is straight and proud.

It gestures, languid, as though Enjolras is negligible.

Grantaire grips harder.

Enjolras becomes a bear and a lion and a poisonous snake, but Grantaire holds on. The fur and the scales try to slip from his fingers and the teeth try to rake him, but he holds on. Enjolras becomes a burning coal, scorching, and the pain is nothing. This much Grantaire can do. He holds on. The fire is every loss he’s ever felt and every hope crushed, the feel of every glass he’s drowned in. Through it, he pictures his friends whole and full of joy.

Finally Enjolras stands before him again. He cradles Grantaire’s hand, careful of the blisters. Everything around them is ash, but for their grinning friends. The throne is gone.

“Do you know the way out?” Grantaire asks.

Enjolras smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> A while ago on tumblr, somebody anonymous asked for a ficlet based on the story of the [Twelve Dancing Princesses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twelve_Dancing_Princesses) (first collected and published by the Brothers Grimm in 1812; I like to think that if this were happening to J Prouvs, he'd write his own version, and try to read it to his comrades). I couldn't resist adding a little [Tam Lin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tam_Lin), which also provides [the title](http://tam-lin.org/versions/39A.html).


End file.
